McCain's Palin Gamble: Untested Governor Is Only a 'Heartbeat' Away from the White House

So, McCain's chosen Alaska's 44 year-old Governor Sarah Palin -- forced childbirth activist, creationist and former beauty queen -- to be his running mate. Here's what folks are saying ...

Booman gives us some good background on Palin. She smoked pot but didn't like it. She rides snowmobiles and does like it.

Elizabeth Benjamin notes the governer's lack of experience and asks whether she's going to be the next Dan Quayle.

Kos, noting that she's a dedicated creationist -- evolution's just a theory, you know -- points out the obvious: her role is to rally the white evangelical base.

Steve Benen -- the ever-prolific and early-rising Steve Benen -- has two posts up that are worth perusing. He thinks Palin is an extremely odd choice, given McCain's strategy of emphasizing experience and calls the pick an act of desperation.

On HuffPo, they're re-running a piece by Chris Kelly, who says Palin's the next Dick Cheney because "she can look you in the eye and tell you black is white."

Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog predicts a 180-degree turn from those disaffected "PUMAs" -- Clinton dead-enders -- who have been warning that the choice of any other woman as a running mate by anyone ever would be the worst sort of treachery to women everywhere.

Over at Feministe, Jill Filopivic is worried, arguing that Palin "could potentially woo white suburban politically moderate female voters" and that "she's likable," has a kid in the military and "has a very all-American story."

Jane Hamsher has a similar take: "I have to say that as a woman, there is something intuitively appealing about her selection, even though I politically disagree with everything she believes in and would never in a million years vote for her."

Jill C, always Brilliant at Breakfast, is agnostic on the question, wondering "just how important it is to the Hillarions to have a Vagina-American on a presidential ticket."

Grist's blog has the run-down on Palin's enviro record, including the fact that she "sued the Interior Department over its decision to list the polar bear as a threatened species" (Steven Colbert must love her).

Just for kicks, John Hinderaker, writing on the right-wing blog Powerline, is concerned: "I'm worried about Palin. I'm afraid she may be the Geraldine Ferraro of 2008. If she really is the nominee, will it come across as a desperation move, a Hail Mary, as Mondale's choice of Ferraro did in 1984? I'm afraid so." In 17 minutes, expect a post about how Palin is absolutely nothing like Ferraro -- how she's a brilliant and principled pick that just goes to show that McCain's totally ready to lead.

And the good folks at Heretical Ideas do us all a great service by noting that she's a damn, dirty Socialist.

So, what are you folks reading?